Seven Days In Tibet

Now that we are far away from the squadrons of riot-gear-wearing, machine-gun-toating Chinese soldiers occupying Tibet, the 700,000 Chinese Internet police censoring Internet content, the Chinese secret police bugging foreign tourist hotel rooms, and Chinese spies disguised as Tibetan monks listening in on our conversations in Tibetan temples, we decided to post some pictures and commentary on Tibet.  This really isn't an exaggeration! It was quite an interesting experience.

Apparently China needed some living room, so they took over Tibet, which is over 3X the size of Texas. Millions of Chinese are flooding in at a rate of 3,000 per day by the new trans china train, and many are encouraged by the Chinese government to settle in Tibet. Much in the same way that the US encouraged settlers to move West.

The Chinese are extremely heavy handed, and extremely progressive. Tibet is undergoing an economic boom, and the Tibetan people are experiencing opportunity and prosperity they never before enjoyed. In fact, the Chinese are baffled at Tibetan ingratitude, and favor themselves as liberators of the Tibetan masses. They feel that they abolished a Tibetan regime which enforced a rigid caste system that cared nothing for the poor and even enforced feudal serfdom (basically a type of slavery). For all that, the current Dalai Lamma (who's picture can't even be displayed privately in Tibet) considers the Chinese movement into his former kingdom to be a cultural genocide against the Tibetans. The truth probably lies somewhere between the Tibetan and Chinese version of things. Despite all of the current turmoil, Tibetan culture remains alive and we were very fortunate to see and experience it before more change takes place. Below are a few pictures of our travels through Tibet.

Traditional Tibetan dress is, fortunately, still the norm. This shopkeeper is representative of many Tibetans, both men and women, who adorn themselves with a wrap-around hair braid and turquoise jewelery and earings. Kelsi even tried out the braided style at Everest Base Camp :) (No picture posted).


Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, is a place of pilgrimage for Tibetans. Many Tibetans spend up to years crawling on hands and knees to get to the temples. (The crawl is a constant prayer action, not out of desperation). These women are spinning Tibetan Buddhism prayer wheels. (Nice photo composition Rusty!) We also got a great video clip of a girl around 9 years old doing the ritualistic down to the ground and up again pilgrimage, but uploading video really doesn't work abroad. She covered ground really well by doing a kind of running slide instead of just going to the ground, up again step, step . . . It was adorable and hilarious.



You might recognize this as Potala Palace from the movie "Seven Years in Tibet." It was the home of the Dalai Lamma, the religious and spiritual leader of Tibet, before he fled to India.

Rusty riding a Yak at 18,000 feet elevation along the Friendship Highway, which links Nepal to Tibet.

Rusty and Kelsi with monks during a religious dance festival. This was a really neat experience. Monks were playing Tibetan long horns, beating drums and playing several other types of instruments while other monks danced with swords and in formations. Many other monks and locals watched.

The Yellow-headed monks are the most common sect of Tibetan Buddhists.

Tibet has precious few trees, so they are forced to build using mud and, well... yak dung.

Kelsi and Rusty at Everest Base Camp. The altitude made us loopy & kind of crazy. We both twitched all night like what we think a recovering drug addict might experience. It was a little freaky. We barely slept that night in a crowded hut of Tibetans, huddled around a fire made from... you guessed it... yak dung.